Painting Hearts
by Team Dragon Star
Summary: With a child underway Naruto and Hinata decide to decorate the nursery. Only things get messier than they could have foreseen. Valentine's day one-shot.


**Hey, I guess this little story came around just in time. With a bit of luck I beat the Valentine's Day crowd to the punch.**

 **That being said, happy Valentine's! I hope this bit of NaruHina fluff will brighten your day :)**

 **This chapter was brought to you by kalebxdd**

* * *

Who on earth needed this many different shades of white? Eggshell, pale smoke, oatmeal, winter mood. It was mind boggling. Naruto had only rifled through the stack of swatches labeled 'white' and he was already losing his cool. He quietly wondered whether Hinata had faced this issue when she had sought out her wedding gown. This gave him newfound respect for his wife; putting up with this crap lost its shine after ten minutes, let alone several months.

Speaking of Hinata, she was busy running around the warehouse. Naruto would see her pop her head around the corner every now and then to check on him and he would always act as if he knew exactly what he was doing, ignoring the fact that she already had about a million items in her shopping cart. He did not fail to see the irony of the situation. He might have saved the world but he was hopeless when it came to home improvement.

It had been the same when they had just started living together right after their wedding. There had been lots of work to be done, ranging from painting the walls to decorating every single room. They had managed in the end, but Naruto chalked their success up to Hinata's drive to make their home truly theirs. He had mostly stood at the sidelines and nodded his head every now and then. _Yes dear, this looks great. Oh, yeah, just how I envisioned it. It's like you can read my mind._

There was only one big difference this time around. They didn't have to decorate an entire house. Just the nursery.

Hinata sped past him once more just as Naruto feigned perusing different tones of green. The bump in her belly was evident; she was only four months into the pregnancy, but she was already wearing maternity clothes. When she had popped the buttons on her flack jacket a few weeks before they had gone out on a shopping spree, leaving the baby store with enough clothes to never wear the same thing twice. Naruto thought it was a little excessive, but he never gave this thought voice. As sweet as Hinata was, ruffling her feathers these days was the same as a death sentence. Damn hormones.

As soon as she was out of sight a woman wearing a blue and yellow polo shirt approached him. She was a store employee and the smile that was pasted on her face showed sympathy for Naruto and his current predicament.

"Mr. Uzumaki," she addressed him. "Is there any way I can help you?"

Naruto smiled back awkwardly. He still wasn't used to everybody knowing who he was and talking to him as if he were an esteemed, high-class figure. Though he supposed that was the case now that he was married into the Hyuuga family.

"Yeah, you can," he said, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Hinata wasn't stealing up on him. "I need to find a nice colour to paint the walls of a baby's bedroom."

"Oh, are you expecting?" the woman asked. "Well that should be no trouble. Would you happen to know the baby's gender?"

Naruto shook his head. "No, we want it to be a surprise. So I guess we need something neutral."

"Well, I see that you have been looking through our hues of green. That's a colour that could fit either gender. Anything in particular that catches your interest?"

"Eh..," he stammered. "Not exactly. This isn't really what I'm good at. All I know is that I like orange things, ya know."

The woman stifled a giggle into her fist. "I seem to recall you running around Konoha in a bright orange tracksuits years ago. And now all the kids are copying you."

And there wasn't a word of a lie to that. Naruto had lost track of how many kids he had seen donning his favourite colour in an attempt to emulate him. It was flattering to say the least.

"I don't think I can get Hinata to paint our nursery orange," he said. "You wouldn't happen to have any ideas?"

She pondered his question for a little while. "Well perhaps you could choose a combination of colours," she suggested. "Paint the room to look like a rainbow."

Blue eyes flared open at the idea. "That's... that's perfect. Could you help me pick out some different colours so I can make it look like I know what I'm doing? I bet the wife will appreciate it."

"Not a problem, Mr. Uzumaki. If you would just follow me..."

* * *

Hinata had loved the idea of turning the nursery into a rainbow. Naruto kept silent about the store employee's help; when his wife wrapped her arms around him he didn't want to put a dent in her happiness.

So they ventured back home with six different buckets of paint. Just one colour shy of an actual rainbow. Hinata hurried him on because she was excited to start working on the nursery right away. She said that she wanted to have at least one wall done before the end of the day. Naruto could have argued this, but she had that hormonal look in her eye that spelled out his death if he were to say something. A day of chores it was.

He did get into the groove after a while though. Hinata used her uncanny eyesight to draw the half-circles on the far wall of the still empty room. All Naruto had to do was fill in the spaces between them and he had Hinata to help him with that too. They talked about the little things and the big things in life as they worked.

"So what do you think it's going to be?" Naruto asked at some point during the afternoon. "A boy or a girl?"

"Well I'd say it is a boy, judging by how much it moves around and kicks me, but since it's your child, I honestly wouldn't know," Hinata replied. She had tied her hair back and flecks of paint had turned her cheeks into a colourful version of connect the dots. It made Naruto smile.

"Is that supposed to mean something?" Naruto jibed.

"Just that it's a Daddy's child," Hinata answered. She stopped a giggle from leaving her throat and added "I guess that means that we have to keep it close until it's sixteen."

"Hey, I wasn't _that_ irresponsible."

"You confronted the man who destroyed our entire town with a single move," Hinata reminded him.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the remark. "Hey," he said, flicking his paintbrush in her direction. "So did you." Drops of violet went flying and splattered the front of Hinata's shirt. Naruto laughed at the sight.

"Hey, I only did that to protect you, you ditz," Hinata chuckled. "And don't throw your paint at me, I'm not a wall." She emphasized this statement by bringing her own brush down in a swooping arc. Naruto was peppered with red. When he tried to wipe it away all he managed to do was smear thick streaks of it across his face, covering up his whiskers.

As Hinata giggled into her fist, Naruto reached for a clean paintbrush and dipped it in the bucket of green. Two could play that game. The laughing ceased when her throat turned the colour of grass.

It was as if he had given a call to arms. Before he knew it she was dual wielding the brushes as if they were kunai, flinging paint in all colours in his direction. All that he could do was retaliate.

Paint went everywhere. On the walls, the floor, and on them, of course. Both Naruto and Hinata looked like rainbows themselves after just a few minutes. They were laughing like maniacs as they splattered each other wherever they could reach. When Naruto felt a runner of blue drip past his waistband into his underwear he decided that he should get some clothes out of the way, cause there was no way in hell that he would ever get them clean again.

Hinata saw him taking off his shirt as an open invitation. It puzzled him to see her dip one hand in indigo and the other in yellow, but he understood perfectly well what she intended when she approached him with her palms facing in his direction.

"No," he said, taking a step back. "No Hinata, we're already messed up as it is. We're gonna have to shower for an hour if you do that."

The smile that curved her lips took all the fight out of him. "Maybe that's what I want to happen," she said as she closed the gap between them. Naruto gulped. Sexy Hinata was still something he was getting used to and losing his grip on the situation could have its consequences. She was pregnant for a reason after all.

Hinata slapped him on the chest with both hands at once, leaving two prints on his pectorals that dripped down in tiny rivulets. He looked like a performance art piece and it seemed as though Hinata found it hilarious.

"What the hell are you laughing at?" Naruto asked. "If you want it that way, fine." A quick dip in the bucket turned his fingers red. He moved in on Hinata and though she raised her hands in defense he was too quick for her. She was probably fearing the worst, but she didn't need to. He was only going to accentuate some of her features.

He drew the first two heart on her cheekbones. Seeing them there made him smile.

"What did you do to me?" Hinata asked. "You didn't draw anything inappropriate, did you?"

Naruto shook his head. "Nah, I didn't. Here, I'll show you."

He stepped in behind her and wrapped both of his arms around her waist, laying his chin on her shoulder to take her into his embrace. Her hands rubbed over his lower arms as if on instinct. Her hair tickled his cheeks and made him chuckle against the skin of her neck.

His hands, still red, toyed with the buttons of her adjustable jacket, revealing the simple shirt underneath it. A pattern of fingerprints indicated where he had laid his hands lovingly, seeking contact with the life growing inside Hinata's belly. She kept silent as she did so, and after a while the tiny hearts on her cheeks lifted along with her smile.

"I think it's a boy," Naruto whispered into her neck. "I can feel him kicking. Feels like the next Hokage. Well, after me, of course."

"And what if it's a girl?"

"Girls can become Hokage too."

She giggled at that and made his chest warm up. He pressed a kiss to the corner of her jaw and slowly peeled her shirt up to expose her baby bump. Her milky white skin was still smooth for the most part, save a curving little crack of veins around her innie. Naruto used these as a base.

A third heart was added to decorate Hinata even more, this one much larger than the previous ones. He drew it all the way around her belly. He could feel her smile as he did so, looking down at her swollen stomach and knowing just what he meant to say.

His heart was with her as well as their child. Maybe he wasn't so good with words, but his spontaneity was almost always romantic.

"There," he said once he was done drawing. "Because the little one deserves a heart too."

They stood there for a while in the silence of the empty nursery. Naruto looked around at the mess they had made; paint was everywhere but where it needed to be and paintbrushes lay scattered throughout the room. It was a disaster, but it was theirs.

"Do you think it'll like the rainbow?" Naruto asked. He laid his hand against her belly and felt their child kick once more.

"I hope so," Hinata replied. "Or else we'll have to start all over." Her eyes wandered over the mayhem and destruction, then over the heart over her belly. "Not that I would mind..."

Grinning, Naruto kissed her. They were going to have to wash this paint off soon despite how cute it made her look. He thanked whatever deity above that she was already pregnant, because he couldn't vouch for what would happen in the shower.

As much fun as it had been, he didn't want to be painting another nursery any time soon.


End file.
